Updates and Newsletters: The main news stories from the major sources, selected, compiled, and occasionally commented on by Michael Novakhov ("Mike Nova") | Public RSS Feeds on the various topics of Global Security | Topics oriented news reviews

The Kremlin has much to gain: An alliance could mean the end of European sanctions against Russia, which will expire in January unless renewed, and the concession of a Russian say over the future of Syria and perhaps also Ukraine, where Russian-backed forces have resumed daily attacks.

THE PARIS attacks created a tactical opportunity for Vladi­mir Putin. For two months the Russian ruler sought to persuade Arab and Western nations to join what he described as an alliance against the Islamic State, even as a Russian offensive in Syria targeted Western-backed Syrian rebel forces. He was spurned, and his military campaign bogged down. Now, in the wake of Paris, French President François Hollande suddenly has become a convert to the grand-alliance idea; he has scheduled visits to Washington and Moscow next week to promote it.

Mr. Putin is doing his best to look like a potential partner. On Tuesday, after weeks of obfuscation, his government suddenly confirmed that the Islamic State was responsible for the bombing of a Russian airliner last month, and Russian forces carried out a rare wave of attacks against the Islamic State capital, Raqqa. The Kremlin has much to gain: An alliance could mean the end of European sanctions against Russia, which will expire in January unless renewed, and the concession of a Russian say over the future of Syria and perhaps also Ukraine, where Russian-backed forces haveresumed daily attacks.

The question for Western governments, including a rightly skeptical Obama administration, is whether joining with Mr. Putin would help or hurt the cause of destroying the Islamic State. For now, that’s not a hard call. Russia has little to offer the U.S.-led coalition in military terms, even if it proved willing to focus its attacks on the Islamic State rather than rebels fighting the regime of Bashar al-Assad. At the same time, Mr. Putin’s strategy of bolstering rather than removing the Assad regime is, along with Iran’s similar strategy, the single biggest obstacle to defeating the jihadists.

Russia has sought to demonstrate in Syria that its military forces have been modernized since theystruggled to defeat Chechen rebels a decade ago. But military analysts haven’t been impressed with the Russian-led assault on anti-Assad forces in northern Syria. Moscow’s planes have mostly dropped dumb bombs, while Syrian and Iranian troops have lost scores of Russian-supplied tanks and armored vehicles to the rebels’ U.S.-made TOW missiles. Having failed to recapture significant territory, the Russian mission appears doomed to quagmire or even defeat in the absence of a diplomatic bailout.

Mr. Putin duly dispatched his foreign minister to talks in Vienna last weekend on a Syrian political settlement. But Moscow and Tehran continue to push for terms that would leave Mr. Assad in power for 18 months or longer, while — in theory — a new constitution is drafted and elections organized. Even a U.S. proposal that Mr. Assad be excluded from the eventual elections was rejected, according to Iranian officials.

Secretary of State John F. Kerry was rather elegant in explaining the dangers of accepting Russian terms. If the West “cut a deal” such that “Assad can be there for a while longer,” he said, “the war won’t stop.” The Syrian dictator “has become the magnet for the foreign fighters” joining the Islamic State, Mr. Kerry said. His atrocities, from chemical weapons to “barrel bombs,” have convinced the vast majority of Syrian Sunnis that he — and not the terrorists — is their principal enemy.

The only productive contribution Mr. Putin could make to an anti-Islamic State coalition would be to reverse himself, use Russia’s leverage to obtain the removal of Mr. Assad and stop attacks on Western-sponsored forces. Failing that, an alliance with Russia would be a dangerous false step for the United States and France.

It is an aerial maneuver far beyond the capabilities of even the most sophisticated modern aircraft: landing upside down on a ceiling. But it is routine business for bats, and now scientists have learned precisely how they do it...

At the end of its call for an international coalition against terrorism, Russia’s Federation Council makes crystal clear what Vladimir Putin’s moves in this direction are all about: The Kremlin leader wants the West to lift sanctions against Russia imposed because of Moscow’s actions in Ukraine or he won’t play, Matvey Ganapolsky says.

All this tends to put Abaaoud at the center of ISIS’s operations. But the intelligence indicates he was part of a larger network of leaders and ground fighters. If he truly was able to move back and forth between Syria and Europe, that undoubtedly made him valuable to the group. Perhaps even an essential logistics man or quartermaster, able to get fighters what they needed. But it doesn’t necessarily make him the mastermind of the Paris attacks.

Reuters UK France confirms suspected mastermind of Paris attacks killed in raid Reuters UK Confirmation that Abaaoud was in Paris will focus more attention on European security services, who ahead of Friday's attacks had thought he w...

Daily Mail Russia hits ISIS with airstrikes as Moscow aims to cut off jihadists' income Daily Mail Russia has released footage which shows its fighter jets targeting oil trucks and a refinery, as Moscow confirmed it hit more than 200...

euronews Oil: Air strikes hit ISIL where it hurts euronews With oil revenue reckoned to provide ISIL militants with more than $1 million a day, Russian bombers have targeted tankers and refinery facilities controlled by the extremists in...

The Independent Video shows Russian air strike explode 'Isis oil refinery' The Independent Video shows the moment a Russian air strike exploded an oil refinery that it claims was controlled by Isis. The Russian Ministry of Defenc...

Factbox - Dead killers, hunted suspects after Paris attacks Reuters UK France and Belgium are striving to establish the identities of the attackers and chief suspects in the attacks that killed at least 129 people in Paris on Friday Nov....

France Intensifies Assault on Islamic State at Home and Abroad Bloomberg A predawn police raid in a Paris suburb led to the deaths of at least two extremists and eight arrests, and revealed that the terrorists were likely planning anothe...

Was Abdelhamid Abaaoud killed in Paris police raid? CNN That's the big question over the fate of Abdelhamid Abaaoud, the suspected ringleader of the Paris terrorist attacks , after heavily armed French police officers stormed an apar...

Financial Times Paris attacks : Belgium cries foul over French blame game Financial Times The Belgian government issued a private diplomatic protest to France this week over what it perceives as the French leadership's unfair blaming...

Daily Beast The ISIS Poster Boy for Paris Attack is No Mastermind Daily Beast Police went to a rented apartment on Rue Corbillon looking for Islamists who might have information about or connections to the Belgian fanatic Abdelhamid Abaa...

BBC News French seek to identify raid bodies BBC News French experts are working to establish whether the suspected ringleader of the Paris attacks was among those killed in a police raid on a flat on Wednesday. Police said Abdelhamid Ab...

CNN 2 killed, 8 held after France raid, but suspected ringleader's status unknown CNN Paris, France (CNN) French authorities took the offensive Wednesday, raiding a purported hideout of the suspected ringleader in last week's dea...

CNN Paris attacks at a glance: Wednesday's developments CNN (CNN) A suicide bomber blew herself up and a police sniper took out a second terror suspect after authorities stormed two apartments and a church Wednesday in the northern P...

euronews Belgium questioned 'terror brothers' before Paris attacks - but didn't tell France euronews Brahim Abdeslam, 31, blew himself up at the Comptoir Voltaire in the French capital, a cafe close to the Bataclan concert ha...

New York Times France Unsure if Raid Killed Top Suspect in Paris Attacks New York Times “I am not able to give you the definitive number and identities of the people who were killed,” the Paris prosecutor, François Molins, said, adding t...

International Business Times Paris Attacks Live Updates: Everything You Need To Know About Latest ... International Business Times “The problem is that the attacks in Paris and the refugee crisis show that we don't have time. There i...

mikenova shared this story from US national security | The Guardian. The agency has half the internal affairs investigators that the NYPD does, and for a force that’s twice the size More than 55,000 armed law enforcement officers operate...

mikenova shared this story from itnnews's YouTube Videos. From: itnnews Duration: 01:48 Cancer-free Tasmanian Devils returned to homeland in a bid to save species from extinction. Report by Jennifer Cordingley.

»The Chief Suspect19/11/15 11:01 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinksmikenova shared this story from NYT > Europe. Abdelhamid Abaaoud, a 27-year-old Belgian, was killed in a Wednesday raid in the Paris suburb of St.-Denis. He is believed to have orchestrated Friday's attacks in Paris.

»Is Islamic State a State?19/11/15 10:31 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinksmikenova shared this story from WSJ.com: World News. The way the international community responds to the Paris attacks hinges on a fundamental question: the extent to which Islamic State is actually a state.

mikenova shared this story from Voice of America. French security forces raided a Paris suburb Wednesday searching for the mastermind behind Friday's deadly terrorist attacks. At least two suspects were killed during the raid, including ...

»Obama promotes trade deal in Asia18/11/15 23:03 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinksmikenova shared this story from World. When President Barack Obama gathered his partners in a new trade deal to celebrate finalizing the massive accord, the group posed for a fast photo, shook some hands and got back to work.

»Marine Le Pen’s Change in Tone18/11/15 22:57 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinksmikenova shared this story from NYT > Europe. Following the attacks in Paris, a look back at how the National Front party leader's language has evolved over the last five years on issues such as immigration and nationalism.

»US Offers $5M Reward for IS Leader18/11/15 22:15 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinksmikenova shared this story from Voice of America. The United States is offering a reward of up to $5 million for information leading to the location or identification of Islamic State leader Abu-Muhammad al-Shimali. The U.S. State Depart...

»Can Putin Come In From The Cold?18/11/15 14:49 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinksmikenova shared this story from Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty. Putin wants to relive 1945 and exorcise 1991. He wants to resurrect the glory of the Soviet victory in World War II; and he wants to bury the humiliation of the Soviet de...

»Low Oil Prices Will Not Last17/11/15 18:27 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinksmikenova shared this story . Suggestions that oil prices will remain at their current levels will "turn out to have been wrong", according to Saudi vice oil minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman Al Saud. Brent crude oil prices have fallen...

»Islamic State Teaches Tech Savvy17/11/15 14:24 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinksmikenova shared this story from WSJ.com: World News. The Paris attacks, apparently planned under the noses of French and Belgian authorities, raise the possibility that Islamic State adherents have found ways around the dragnet of electr...

»Obama's Asian distraction? - Politico17/11/15 13:48 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinksmikenova shared this story from World - Google News. Politico Obama's Asian distraction? Politico Just as pressure grows for the White House to take more action in the Middle East, President Barack Obama is heading instead to the Philipp...

»French Warplanes Hit ISIS Again17/11/15 13:02 from Mike Nova's Shared Newslinksmikenova shared this story from Defense News - Home. France conducted a further airstrike against bases of the Islamic State forces, destroying another two bases at Raqqa in Syria, the defense ministry said Tuesday. ...